Worry
by Luna Moonsurf
Summary: Because Lloyd needs to seize his happy ending. — guest-contributed Wonder resolution, Zelloyd


**Disclaimer:** Neither the uploader nor the author own Tales of Symphonia.

**Uploader's Note:** I did not write this, but I am uploading it. Much will be explained by the author.

**Author's Note:** Like many of you who read the Wonder twins, I was Displeased with the ending. So in the truest spirit of fanfiction, I Fixed the Ending. Something was _wrong_ on the Internet, and I had to rectify it.

Funnily enough, I always had problems thinking about Zelloyd in terms of reciprocated (I always was stuck in the mindset of the first Wonder; Zelos loves an oblivious Lloyd), but then I read Wonder: Mirrored and I suddenly had no problem believing it could work. So I decided it would work. By force.

Enjoy~!

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><p>Regal had always worried about Marta.<p>

How she continued to maintain that random passers-by on the streets were on their ways to romantic rendezvous or to greet their spouses in remote locations. She would giggle and smile at seeing young couples flirt in the market and squeeze Emil's arm in glee at the sight of love conquering. She would shamelessly delve into gossip and those horrendous penny dreadfuls, extolling the kindness and bravery of everyday knights in shining armor.

How something rigid would pass over her face upon seeing Zelos and Lloyd together lately and her bubbly encouragement of the beauty of romance would subside. Her excitement over the purity and goodness of true love would falter and she didn't squeal over every pair of love-struck couples she saw, almost as if her faith in love's might was wavering. She would still engage Emil in madcap adventures, insisting there was some sight or another he had to see, but gone was the supplement that the scene would be "so romantic". The change was beginning to become obvious.

Regal had always worried about Emil.

How he had slowly began to come out of his shell, even appearing to be drawing closer to Lloyd. And then he had stopped. Suddenly, Emil didn't seem to be spending much time with Lloyd at all. He began associating with Genis more, practicing spells and guards with him. Happily, he also took time out to assist Raine with cooking and the results seem to point to slow, but eventual progress. But, most strangely, he began visiting the World Tree. Regal assumed he was speaking with Yuan, though about what is where things got fuzzy. But he had an approximate idea.

How he sometimes scowled in frustration for no apparent reason. He seemed at times ready to declare something, but then drew back at the last moment. He started using a new maxim, "I have to try". He would say it when faced with a difficult or impossible task (such as teaching Raine to cook) and sometimes used it in normal circumstances as well, such as when attempting to get book placed too high on a shelf. It was the most passive-aggressive Regal had ever seen Emil.

Regal had always worried about Zelos.

How he thought no one saw the change in his smile or the timbre of his laugh when around Lloyd.

How he was determined to put himself in the position of most heartbreak.

How he seemed to be deluded into believing he had no right or method to pursue Lloyd.

Regal had always worried about Lloyd.

How he was blind to the mutuality of Zelos's love.

— — — — — — —

One day, Regal caught Lloyd alone; ironically above where they first met, Meltokio.

"Ah, Regal! What can I do for you?" he asked with his usual friendly grin.

Regal resisted the urge to clasp his hands in front of him out of comfortable habit and cut right to the chase, "You love Zelos."

Something pale and tired made Lloyd's grin falter, "Of course I love him! He's my-"

"Lloyd," Regal interrupted sternly, shaking his head, and Lloyd let his smile slide off his face. "Not as a friend." Lloyd looked away.

"I see you've been talking to Emil. I don't need to explain then-"

"I have not spoken to Emil," Regal once again cut in, "I have made my own deductions."

Lloyd looked at him with a guarded expression, "Well, your deductions were incorrect. You didn't tell him, did you?"

"No. But why are you so certain I'm wrong?"

"I have the inability to love, Regal. I have tried. With Colette, with Sheena…and with Zelos. I'm not the kind of person to care for any one person more than any other I care for."

"He loves you as well," Regal observed.

"I know that!" Lloyd replied, frustrated, "But I just can't…I don't want to pretend to love him, to make a love of lies. I don't want to string him along a path paved with baseless hopes. I can never return his feelings, why should we ruin our relationship like that?"

Regal shook his head, "Rarely have I heard such eloquence from you, Lloyd. I mourn the fact it was for a thought so misguided."

Lloyd scowled.

"Do you truly think giving into what you believe is a false love is any more a charade than your current relationship? Zelos pretends to not love you from the bottom of his heart and you insist upon acting as though you don't notice how much he cares. You both lie to each other, to those around you, and to yourselves. Hardly more cruel than giving him a chance to win your affections, affections you are unwilling to admit you already possess."

"Why do you keep insisting I love him?" Lloyd demanded.

"Why do you keep insisting you are unable?" Regal replied levelly.

"Because it's true! I'm a half-angel!" he burst out exasperatedly.

Regal stared at him for a very long time, "Lloyd…that may be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Who told you can't fall in love?"

"No one has to tell me," Lloyd replied.

"It had to have been Yuan. He's the only angel left."

Lloyd was silent.

"I would think you would know better than to take words of Yuan's at face value."

"It wasn't Yuan! I know what I feel, and I am not in love."

Regal sighed. Sometimes he forgot that behind Lloyd's flashes of insight lay a boy who couldn't even multiply. "If you have never been in love, how would you know how it feels? It's not something that can be described easily after all."

"But…"

"And being an angel has nothing to do with being unable to fall in love. You would be hard pressed to find an emotion other than love that could drive someone to stay beside the tree containing the soul of one lost for the rest of time. Or perhaps, more tellingly, betray the strongest force in the worlds to run away with a woman and their child for three years. Need I get into the love of a parent or love of a sibling that has clearly manifested in angels before?"

"Oh…so you're saying I _am_ capable of love?"

Oh, Lloyd.

"Not only that. You are currently in love and simply need to recognize it for what it is. You must understand; we all get our happy endings—some of us just need an extra push to be able to seize them."

And with that, Regal began to walk away, briefly asking Lloyd to 'think on what he told him' and laying a hand on his shoulder before he bid him goodbye.

Lloyd watched him as he left towards the city gate; does he have the chance to seize his happy ending?

— — — — — — —

The second Regal was out of sight, Lloyd fell back against a wall, sliding to the ground as he put his hand to his head to try to soothe his swirling thoughts.

What? What? _What?_

He clutched his head and lifted his face to the sky, seeking an answer in the clouds.

He never thought he was in love; but had he not tried? He had begged the Eternal Sword, beseeched Yuan for explanation, and ultimately distanced himself from Emil after Emil's confrontation. But had he ever thought long and hard on why the Sword never responded, why Yuan's eyes had danced in laughter when lamenting Lloyd's heritage, or even why he had run away from Emil's counterargument? No, no he hadn't.

Then Regal came along.

Now where everything had been hopeless, nothing was making sense. Or rather, something was beginning to become clear.

The feeling that Zelos was _important_, that he was his _brofriend_, that he really, really cared for Zelos—was that feeling…?

He closed his eyes and groaned.

Lloyd the Great had fallen in love with the Great Zelos Wilder.

When had that happened?

Why hadn't he noticed?

He recalled Yuan's laughing eyes when he spoke of Lloyd's heritage. That his situation was 'unprecedented'. Because he was born from an angel and a human. Who had fallen in love.

That asshole. He had been mocking him.

The whole time he wanted a happy ending for Zelos, it had been _right there_.

Damn, he could be dense.

Lloyd opened his eyes and lowered his head to stare out into the street.

The view was blocked by Zelos crouching in front of him.

"Zelos!" Lloyd blurted in shock.

"Heya, bud," Zelos grinned, "I saw you over here and figured it wouldn't be as comfortable as the couch at my mansion. Wanna come over to chill?" he finished hopefully.

"I actually need to tell you something, Zelos," Lloyd admitted carefully.

"I'd say the side of the street is the place to do it then," Zelos confided.

Lloyd let out a laugh and it felt great, "Fine, I see your point. C'mon, let's go to the courtyard."

"Where we first met?" Zelos grinned, "You planning to propose, bud?"

"You have no idea," he replied.

Lloyd shook his head and began to push himself to his feet.

He took the hand offered to help him rise.

The courtyard was not very far away and Lloyd let Zelos sit down but remained standing himself.

Zelos stared up at him with curious eyes, "Shouldn't I be the one standing?" he joked.

Lloyd took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "This is going to take a minute, so just don't say anything or leave or something until I'm done, got it?"

He opened his eyes to check Zelos's response.

"Okay, bud," Zelos said seriously.

"Zelos…recently…actually, let me start somewhere else," he rubbed his eyes, trying to find a place to begin.

"Alright, Zelos?" Lloyd said with determination after a moment.

"What can I do for today, bud?" Zelos replied, both amused and bemused.

Lloyd plowed forward and cut right to the chase, "You love me."

The briefest flash of harsh, raw pain made Zelos's small smile flicker, "Of course, Lloyd! You're my brofriend!"

Lloyd shook his head quickly, forcing the words out before he could take them back, "Not as a friend. A different love."

Zelos looked away, "You…figured it out." He swallowed thickly, paling, "I guess-"

"I'm not done telling you things."

Zelos looked up incredulously.

Lloyd had managed to turn rather red in the time he hadn't been looking.

"I think that…for a long time I didn't know if I could even…" Lloyd glanced away, "I think I'm in love with you, Zelos."

"Bud…"

"You said you wouldn't interrupt!"

"Sorry!"

"Right…" Lloyd cleared his throat, "I thought I had the inability to love, but I was mistaken. I was recently brought to my senses. I can love someone above my other friends and I think that person is you, Zelos."

He sucked in a big breath, and then rattled out, "And I know you have this stupid belief in your head that you don't deserve love or something stupid like that, which is a stupid thing to think and it makes you stupider for it. Yeah, you betrayed us, but so did Dad and his reason was even stupider, but not stupid enough to unredeemble and he still deserved a second chance. I even did stupid things for stupid reasons. But thinking you can't be forgiven or don't deserve to is stupid. And I didn't fall in love with stupid Zelos." Lloyd paused and collected his thoughts, "Okay, so, uh, point being, if you wouldn't mind upgrading our status from brofriends to boyfriends, I wouldn't really mind either…"

Lloyd finally managed to meet Zelos's eyes and what he saw made his breath catch.

Zelos was beaming. Not smirking, not smiling, not grinning. Beaming. He had never him so overjoyed.

"You can, um, react now."

No sooner had he uttered the words did Lloyd find himself in a bone-crushing hug.

"I can't even…find the words. I love you, Lloyd," Zelos whispered blissfully.

Lloyd laughed at his bro, no, _boyfriend's_ exuberance, clutching him as tightly as he held him.

After a moment, Zelos pulled back and looked more deeply than he ever had into Lloyd's eyes. Just having the right to stare endlessly into them felt like magic.

It felt like heaven when Lloyd closed them to kiss Zelos lightly and grin. Zelos went from speechless to dumbstruck.

Could this even be real?

"Would you call this a happy ending?" Lloyd asked, stepping away.

Zelos didn't answer immediately, only eyed Lloyd's hand before placing it in his own and squeezing it tightly. He liked the sensation so much, he did it again.

"Yes, this…this is what a happy ending feels like," he placed his other hand over the one he held and brought it to his lips, "Right here. With you."

He smiled softly, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Lloyd blushed indignantly, "That's not fair! I don't have any experience being all, you know, whatever!"

Zelos threw back his head and laughed; everything so much brighter and fun now, "What, romancing? In my defense, I spent a long time thinking about it."

Lloyd snatched his hand back and Zelos let him take it, grinning.

"Well, what I don't have in time, I make up for in intensity."

"Bud…are we talking about the same thing?"

"Of course we—you! You have a dirty mind."

Zelos smirked, "I do, don't I? What I am wondering, though, is who do I owe an eternal debt of gratitude towards for aiding you in your revelation? You are forbidden from saying Yuan."

"No, he actually, never mind," having Zelos kick Yuan's ass, while entertaining, would put the World Tree in danger, "It was Regal. He kinda made me face all the flaws in my logic."

"The irony. Wasn't long ago we had to convince him to see reason with the manacle thing, now look at him."

They discussed that for a while as they strolled through Meltokio, hand in hand, just happy to next to each other.

The man who had once been locked in the past and the tragic end of his own love had overcome those burdens and was enjoying the life he had. He had seized his own happy ending and was helping others obtain theirs. He was truly a perfect gentleman, that man…

…A man who felt more comfortable in handcuffs than cufflinks and spent more time in jail than out.

They had always worried about Regal.

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><p>-<strong>Author's Note:<strong> Like? Da/Da? You better. Especially the Stupid Speech. Otherwise you're stupid. Obviously.

Quick Point: Why I chose Regal: older brother/teacher/father-like figure that Lloyd wouldn't be able to just make up an excuse and run from. Wiser, older, more likely to be heeded, which is why Lloyd needed to be talked to by him instead of the younger, less trusted Marta or Emil.

Oh! And if you are wondering just who is this goddess who wrote such template-following gold, I go by the name TheRecorder. Also Luna Moonsurf's Beta/Reader/Most Awesome Sister Ever. I read every word of her stories out loud with different voices to both entertain and catch errors like that train wreck of a run-on sentence/paragraph that you _didn't_ see near the end of Wonder: Mirrored because I fixed that mofo.

You're welcome and goodnight.

**Uploader's Note:** She spent an entire day non-stop in front of the computer typing this. All because, like many of you, she didn't like how I ended it. Isn't she nice?

That's according to her. I personally think this is to spite me. Please send any and all reviews and comments through me and I'll be sure she gets them. It's not like she posts or reviews much anymore anyway.


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